LAPD Officer shows how inept she is with her gun

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12-34hom is right--we ALL have room for improvement and I have more room than most. On the other hand, we are not officers of the law who have a good chance of getting into a shootout this week. My odds of having to use a gun for defense sometime in the next year are not high; what are they for a cop? I think what really galls me is the idea that most people in my state think the cops are somehow safer than me so I can't be allowed to carry but they can. The local gun dealer handles all the warranty work on the Glocks the department uses. The chief of police in a small Illinois town came in one day and asked him to send her Glock in because she was going to have night sights fitted. He asked for the gun. She brought it out, racked the slide, dropped the magazine, and flipped it around so her thumb was over the trigger guard and the muzzle was pointing right at her face.

He, of course, took the gun and racked the slide, ejecting the chambered round. She was understandably surprised.
 
12-34-hom Posted "Is this another inditement of cops and women? Or will we all admitt that ALL of us [regardless of occupation] needs more Practice when it comes to firearms shooting and handling and saftey?"
Yep I will agree I think the point is that the officers are expected to know how to operate a importand piece of possibly deadly equipement. They should have taken lots of training. "some of it they were even paid to take" That many of us have paid our own $$ to take. The officers are given permission to carry firearms where most of us arn't. etc.
A range I used to belong to allowed the local police to use it once. We painted and cleaned and provided a range officer. "No thanks we can't have people seeing our tactics." They shot the heck out of the range. Lights,target turners, "that are located over 2feet above the targets at 50 foot range" center support pillers, walls, basicly anything 5' in front of the firing positions. "I think they were shooting in front of the set firing positions" It was a good test of the safety gear and the backstops I guess. I now know why they didn't want me there as range safety officer. I would have "after warnings and advice" kicked them out. I wonder if they were trying the "little Joe" shot. You dive and roll while shooting. Saw it on Bonanza a few times. Only way I can figure out some of the angles of the shots.
 
I also saw that show and must say that this officer was not very proffesional. She was more into "being pretty" and being on TV than doing her job. There is no excuse for having a dirty weapon on duty (they were in uniform, although summer light).If I were her partner I'd have fired off a tootsie roll in my skivvys on the spot.She may be a damn good officer but she was too concerned about being pretty for the camera.That said she was a pretty darn good lookin' officer.
 
I also saw that show and must say that this officer was not very proffesional. She was more into "being pretty" and being on TV than doing her job. There is no excuse for having a dirty weapon on duty (they were in uniform, although summer light).If I were her partner I'd have fired off a tootsie roll in my skivvys on the spot.She may be a damn good officer but she was too concerned about being pretty for the camera.That said she was a pretty darn good lookin' officer.
 
It is not just the women in law enforcement- there are lots of males who fall well below standard (anyone's standard) as well.

I went through the academy with a woman who could not qualify at first with her pistol. She worked at it, and eventually achieved a dramatic increase in her score. She still keeps up on her practice, and regularly qualifies. She admitts it is hard for her, but she is open minded and dedicated.

The same woman regulary out shoots male officers with her shotgun. She is really good a placing three slugs in an impressively tight group at fifty yards!
 
Virtually most police officers never used there weapons in a deadly force encounter; And mandated training for police officers with firearms is sorely lacking for many reasons. [None of which are valid imho]

"Officers are expected to know how to handel a important piece of possibly deadly equipment". I would hope that little jewel of wisdom applies to anyone handeling a firearm of any kind; not just to police officers.

Far as shooting up a range facility, go to any public gun range watch some of the antics of people shooting on these facilities and the condition of said facilities. In a word it's just plain SCARY.... period. [some people go into the stuiped mode when shooting guns of any type].

It's not a gender or occupation type thing, firearm proficiency it consists of = eye hand coordination. Just like golf.. pool.. etc. So: no practice = poor scores.

[This message has been edited by 12-34hom (edited March 01, 2000).]
 
TFLers may find it hard to believe but most cops just don't give a damn about their guns or learning to shoot. Unless they are forced, they won't practice, won't qualify, and won't give their weapons even minimal care. A gunfight? They just don't think it will happen to them and if it does, they will be OK. Sure.

Like a lot of pros, they don't take care of their tools. The difference, which never seems to occur to them, is that a cruddy power drill won't cost the user's life, and a cruddy gun might!

Jim
 
I also have seen this show and that woman scarred the **** out of me. If she was my partner, I would ask for another or get on her ass about her gun skills. As I am going into law enforcement, it worries me that there are officers out there who barely know which end of the gun the bullit comes out. I am thankfull, however, that Colorado, has excellent Police Accademies with high shooting standards. In order to pass the Police Accademy, you have to score a minimum of 150 out of 210. That is about 71%. This does not seem that high of a standard. But you have to figure that to qualify, you have 42 rounds, you have to shoot at the 3,7,15,and 25 yard lines with short time limits, and in the kneeling position, from behind a barricade, one handed (both strong and week hands), and you have to perform several reloads during qualifying. I personally scored a 170 and the highest score of the my class was a 208. I am also thankfull that the majority of the officers I have spoken with in my area are very into their guns, and their abilities with their guns. I Hope this information will put a little of your faith back into law enforcement's abilities.
 
Thank all of you for your comments. But I hope "most" refers to your Dept. I am quite disheartened by by what I have seen in the replies. I have been building Combat pistols for LEO's,FGA,CCW, for many years now and have never heard anything so disturbing.SC <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Red Bull:

I was watching a great show last night on the Discovery channel (I think) called "Insiders" which featured a documentary about the LAPD.
An Officer was killed during the show, very sad, by an ambush to his car on a routine call. He was shot through his door into his head from the back as he rolled up to another call.

Anyway, a couple days after the shooting the featured Officers of the show went to qualify with their handguns. The featured Officers were a male and a female who drive together. Keep in mind, this is the LAPD, and these guys pull guns a few times a DAY on really really bad guys, and they just had an Officer killed. These cops pull their guns out and point them in low ready at car loads of people on ROUTINE traffic stops if the car looks like it contains gangster type people. So, in other words, they rely on their guns a lot more than most cops in other areas. You would think these guys would take their sidearms seriouslly.

The qualification was just about a joke (as we all know), especially considering that the female Officer PASSED even with her pathetic performance. Her groups, (when she got her gun to fire) were about 12 inches at what looked like about 7 yards. Her groups were very much low and to the right of COM, obviously a sign of anticipating recoil....even using a low recoiling full sized 9mm Berreta.

This is how her performance went:
She went up to the line. She drew her gun, (apparently before any buzzer?) and pointed it at a target. She pulled the trigger...and nothing happened (except that she jerked the gun down a bit in anticipation of recoil). She got that look on her face we have all seen when someone forgets to disengage the safety. She then disengaged her slide mounted safety and pointed the gun back at the target (keep in mind that this is supposed to be similating a life threatening situation where she is defeding her or YOUR life from a bad guy). All this time the timer is running and she is trying to "qualify". She points it back at the target and *click"* it goes again! Oops, she forgot to put a round in the chamber! She says "oops" and racks the slide and gets a round in the chamber. (Clock it still running, and she or YOU are still getting killed while she cannot figure out how to run her gun). She then points it at the target, and gets a shot off....and her gun jams!
I am told that the full sized Berreta's are tough to jam so this is amazing that she accomplished this. And yes, it was her fault and she admitted it. She said "that is what you get when you never clean your gun" with a chuckle.
After all this, she still qualified even with the huge groups she shot.

This is an officer of the LAPD. Officers around her pull their guns several times a shift. Another Officer was just killed, so you would think they would take their guns seriously after that. She does not even know to remove the safety, she can't remember to load the gun, and she keeps her gun so dirty that when she finally gets it to fire, it jams. All this, and she can barely hit a full sized sillouette target and she STILL passed her qualifier.
This just shows how pathetic some/most Police Officers are at gun handling. I would imagine that gun handling skills are better at the LAPD than at most places due to that fact they actually have to use their guns whereas many Officers never even pull their gun for months or years at a time.

And...after all this and her gun jams, they show her putting her gun back on, saying with a chuckle that she "needs to clean it sometime", and she goes on apparently on her shift! She has no concern that her gun is so dirty that it jams, and she is going to go to work that way and clean it later (someday?)!

So....if anyone uses Police Officers as a standard of how we are supposed to perform in shooting situations, keep this scenario in mind. Cops in general are NOT a very good example of how any decent shooter will perform with a gun.

I have cops in the family, and I see cops at the range, and I am not kidding when I say that my wife shot better than these cops on the very first day I taught her. "Pathetic" is how I describe their shooting skills.[/quote]
 
I saw that show too. And yes, it was pathetic. If she knows that a gun will malfunction if you don't keep it properly cleaned, why wasn't it?
Even the narrorater of the show made a comment about this poor performance :(

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"what gives a government that arms the whole world the right to disarm it's own citizens?"
 
The problem is two fold-

1. States and Departments do not require much from their officers.

2. The officers and deputies do not hold themselves to high standards.

My department had range day at least once a month. There was all the ammo you could shoot just waiting there, free. I would usually be the only officer besides the range instructor present. The average daily attendence, out of thirty four officers, was three. Needless to say, many of our officers had problems come quarterly qualifications. They saw no problem with there skills at all, and could cite from memory studies indicating that they would probably never need to discharge their weapons during their career. They would get offended at the suggestion that they would fail to perform as expected in a fire fight.

The officers which did regularly show up averaged in the high 190s, out of 210.

The rest averaged in the mid 170s, with 170 being the minimum passing score. (In Colorado)
 
The problem is two fold-

1. States and Departments do not require much from their officers.

2. The officers and deputies do not hold themselves to high standards.

My department had range day at least once a month. There was all the ammo you could shoot just waiting there, free. I would usually be the only officer besides the range instructor present. The average daily attendence, out of thirty four officers, was three. Needless to say, many of our officers had problems come quarterly qualifications. They saw no problem with their skills at all, and could cite from memory studies indicating that they would probably never need to discharge their weapons during their career. They would get offended at the suggestion that they would fail to perform as expected in a fire fight.

The officers which did regularly show up averaged in the high 190s, out of 210.

The rest averaged in the mid 170s, with 170 being the minimum passing score. (In Colorado)
 
I am going to in my 2 cents worth and probably get flamed for it.
A firearm is a tool of a leo.If a carpenter,mechanic or any other trade does not keep there tools in proper order or can't use them they will be fired.Now why do the standards for leo's fall totaly short of all other professions.If they will not maintain their tool and profency with them they should be fired as any one else would be.
Bob
 
I saw it too, as a LE Firearms Instructor, I wasn't too surprised. For most of the "officers" like the one profiled, its just a job. Their most important piece of gear is their pen, and there is not a damn thing we can do about it. On the other hand, some of the baddest, most experienced, real deal gunfighters, who are the walking definition of a warrior work at LAPD. I have a cadre of guys that I train with who spend every waking moment training, and we end up having to take care of the P.C. dorks that are clones of the person profiled in the show. Its just like the military, or actually any profession-you got pros and dorks (doctors, lawyers, computer people, stock brokers, whatever). The techniques I learned from the real pros at L.A.P.D. Metro D Platoon is the best stuff I have gotten from anybody else out there. These guys are shooting at well over 90% in the field, and are everything the low achieving non pro on T.V. isn't. Welcome to the new era of "Community Oriented Policing", not "Take predatory animals off the street policing".
 
All I have to say is, if I were an LAPD cop, I would have the cleanest gun you had ever seen, day in and day out. It would function perfectly or I would be at the Armorer until it did. I would be able to shoot the center out of a hockey puck at 7 yds or I would practice until I could.

There's really no excuse for putting yourself and others in danger from neglect. Period.
 
If the chief or sheriff doesn't care, then firearms proficiency will not be high on the list of priorities in the training office. Command staff, when asked if there are any problems to be attended to, see that question in the light of what they think the boss thinks is important.

It is not fun to be a naysayer in the sea of contentment and admonish the boss that all is not well in his warrior clan. Many a firearms instructor can tell tales of their own personal experiences or someone elses' who dared to tell the boss the troops aren't well trained.

"Isn't that the firearms instructors' responsibility?", he will ask.

"Well, sort of."

"Then get new firearms instructors."

Eventually you get instructors who don't want to rock the boat. Everything is fine until some officer gets killed because he forgot to take the safety off or load his weapon properly or keep it in good working order.
 
I have been a LEO Firearms Instructor since 1985. I went to FBI LEO Firearms Instructor School, when I was working SWAT. I was the team instructor and also for my municipal agency. I am a POST certified Leo Firearms Inst, NRA certified and a long time member of IALEFI (International Association of Law Enforcement Firearms Instructors). The Officers at my agency usually shoot in the 90s on their quals. Female Officers are another matter entirely and the ones that we have is a chore to get qualified. We shoot 18 rounds from 25 yards, 8 rounds double tap from 15 yards, (12 rounds 6 weak 6 strong hand) from 7 yards and (12 rounds 6 strong and 6 weak)from 5 yards The state minimum standards is a score of 70 percent to qualify, I have raised our qualification to 75 and if it were'nt for the females I would raise it to 80. Most of my cops are into guns and like to shoot. I believe that women have a place in Law Enforcement but it is not on the street. They are a liability and a danger to themselves and to the public. There are exceptions to this but in most cases females, do not belong in a patrol car. There are plenty of other jobs for them in police work rather than patrol division.

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SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL POLICE, KEEP THEM INDEPENDENT.
 
The most incompetent LEO I've seen on TV
was a big macho male Las Vegas cop.

A fool on the range and incredibly incompetent
when arresting folks.

Plenty of very competent female shooters there. Move off the gender issue and go to
the competency issue.
 
I agree that females need not be on patrol. I cannot count how many times I have seen a female officer getting thrown around like a ragdoll in an arrest. We can argue about political correctness all we want, but the FACT is, a female cop is more of a liability that a help in that kind of arrest. They are completely useless in even trying to wrestle down one arm of a male felon. I have seen female officers hanging onto one limb of a bad guy and getting thrown around like a puppy on a towel, while a medium sized male officer is handling the rest if him by himself. As a male Officer, that is a liability to ME. That female person is watching my back, and basically she is useless and turns out to be someone I have to protect rather than count on. My wife even agrees with me on this. We have gone a little too far in the PC move and we are lying to ourselves in thinking that women can be Police Officers. We are so in denial that no one even wants to talk aobut the issue. We just pretend they do fine. The fact is, when you are arresting a 200 pound felon, which is very common, a 125 pound woman, who even at that light weight is 30% body fat and not nearly as strong as a man her size, is useless. That means that the male officers are at risk, and that is not fair to them. Females should be limited to be called for social situations or to search female officers. Otherwise, I don't want one in my patrol car.
If you had a 200 pound felon beating you up would you rather have a female officer role up or a male officer to save your butt? If you were dying of smoke inhalation in a building do you want a female officer to come in and try feebly to drag you out or a male officer who can pick you up easily and carry tou out? Same with any case, from being stuck in a car underwater with a stuck door etc. Same with me, I do not want a female officer watching my back when I could have a male officer doing it instead.
Female officers also pose other liabilities. Some examples: bad guys will try things with a female officer there that they would not even try with a male officer there. Also, because female officers have less physical ability, they have to step up the levels of force faster. This is a liability to the public. They cannot wrestle somenoe, so they draw their baton and hit them instead. Or they cannot wrestle out of a situation, so they have to draw the gun faster. This is a liability to the public.
Femaler officers are a liability to the public and to other officers,a nd we do all this to PRETEND like they can do the job so they don't get their feelings hurt.
If you are going to have female officers in cars, you should pay them what they are worth, and in that particular job, they are not as effective as a man, so they should pay them half as much and staff twice as many to do the same job. This goes beyond PC and now we are talking about MY ASS and getting it protected by my partner. When it's my ass on the line, I want the most effective person watching it, and that ain't a woman.

But, the original post was not about female officers but about poorly trained officers. Unfortunately, the far majortity of poorly trained officers in these areas that I know are females, and the far majority of females officers look at their job like a social job and do not take the combative side seriously. Even when they do, they are still not as effective as a man who put the same effort forward. Some jobs just are not for women, let's face the truth.
Minimum performance standards would solve all of this. If you are strong enough, and shoot well enough etc then you can be an officer regardless of your sex!. They used to have standards like that but they have been sued over them so now anyone can be a cop. They have had to lower and lower their standards to accomadate everyone tothe point where there ARE no more standards. The LAPD just had to get rid of their 5 foot rule. You used to have to be over 5 feet to be a cop, but theyt got sued so now they can't even have that requirement! Imagine a 4 foot tall cop! Yeah, that is what political correctness has gotten us.
 
I have to agree with the post above. I have spoken with a former CHP female co-worker. She told me about other female LEOs that would get the crap slapped out of them because of their failure to practice and/or a lack of aggressivness (like slapping a suspect up side the head when he is threatening the officer-her words) She left the force because she grew tired of the crap, like being followed home by the gang bangers that lived around her duty station. She saw them and let them know to back off before she got anywhere near her home. I have been told by another LEO (male) about the fights onduty with suspects and I have to conclude that a woman would never survive these encounters. He was almost killed in one fight with several gang bangers.
 
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